PCS Students Show Progress in State Exams

Final results for the 2018 California Assessment of Student Performance and Progress (CAASPP) were released last week and showed that Petaluma City Schools continues to perform better than state and county averages in English Language Arts and mathematics. This year, the fourth cycle of CAASSP testing, just over 3,600 PCS students in grades 3-8 and 11 took the exams.

Additionally, this Press Democrat article shows that, of the Sonoma County districts listed, Petaluma Joint Union High and Petaluma City Elementary did the best in Math and were both in the top three for English.

"We are so proud of our students and staff for continuing to show academic gains despite all the challenges we faced last year,” said Gary Callahan, Superintendent of Schools. "The fires led to lost instructional time for all our students and staff. Every single student and staff member were emotionally impacted," Callahan said.

For each grade level and subject area, students receive a score ranging from around 2,000 to 3,000. The overall scores fall in one of four achievement levels: Standard Exceeded, Standard Met, Standard Nearly Met, and Standard Not Met. Petaluma City Schools scores demonstrated a positive trend with the number of students meeting or achieving the CAASPP standards in English language arts steadily increasing from 3rd grade to 11th grade, with 70% of all high school 11th graders meeting the upper tiers of performance. In addition, student scores in English language arts were 20% higher than the state average and 10% higher than the state average in mathematics.

"The CAASPP scores are important and included as one of the many ways we track individual student progress at school. Our teachers utilize a variety of interim assessments, projects, reports, and assignments to get a true measure of how each student is performing," stated Cliff De Graw, Assistant Superintendent of Educational Services. "Our ultimate goal is to develop effective communicators and critical thinkers as we prepare our students to be college and career ready beyond high school. Things are looking good."